30 days of writing - Day 1

I decided to go ahead and give this a shot.  If nothing else, it'll give me a chance to explore some of my own thoughts and such.

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

My favorite has been, and probably will always be, Aleran - the fantasy world I've rebuilt so many times over the last 20+ years to get it to its current status.  It's my biggest project.  I have dozens upon dozens of story ideas based over a long period of time in this world.

To bring it into focus even more, my favorite story arcs all have to do with the continent of Vassa/Kingdoms of Erondahl, Lytharia, and Sindla.  I've put a lot of effort into working out the kinks in these lands and building characters from these lands.  I've noticed a distinct shift from human dominated societies in my work and into the kingdoms dominated by my Elves, Sindlans, Majiin, and Terathen.

My very first story in this world was a very badly written knock off of "A Little Princess" turned into a weird faerie tale.  I was also only 8 years old and it was the first story I'd ever fully written.  Of course, that story has long since vanished from my collection and I can only tell my inner 8 year old that it's for the best since we write so much better than we did back then.

I've written barely concealed Cinderella stories out of this world, projected a lot of my insecurities onto the characters, and my favorite collection of characters to play with have undergone so many different incarnations I seriously ought to make a spreadsheet just to see how they - and the world they live in - have evolved.

I enjoy my other projects and look forward to writing all of them, but of all my projects/universes I really feel Aleran is the one that actually reflects who I am as a writer and how I've evolved my storytelling abilities over the years.